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Spring Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance, May 5-8:
The Headliners
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Coast to Coast and Beyond: The Musical Headliners of the Spring Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival
From pop to Cuban hip hop, experimental bluegrass to Malian melodies, Shakori Hills celebrates the roots of the world
Pittsboro, NC - The Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance has always boasted an eclectic roster of music that attendees are not likely to hear or see on a regular basis. This spring, the top of the bill is more diverse than ever, featuring, just by country: Cuba, Mali, France, south-eastern and western United States and Columbia. Each of these artists is a story on their own, but they come together to be part of the GrassRoots one.
 April of 2005 was the last time that Chris Thile graced the stages of Shakori Hills. That time it was within the now-disbanded Americana darling trio, Nickle Creek. Thile has come a long way in these 11 years, and before embarking on his next journey - replacing Garrison Keilor as the host of NPR'
s A Prairie Home Companion
- he's been resting comfortably among fellow musical genuises and friends the Punch Brothers. Punch Brothers are the acoustic quintet of Thile (on mandolin), guitarist Chris Eldridge, bassist Paul Kowert, banjoist Noam Pikelny and violinist Gabe Witcher. Says the
Washington Post
, "With enthusiasm and experimentation, Punch Brothers take bluegrass to its next evolutionary stage, drawing equal inspiration from the brain and the heart." Their latest album, the T-Bone Burnett-produced,
The Phosphorescent Blues
, was released in January 2015 on Nonesuch Records.
The Virginia Key GrassRoots Festival in Maimi, FL has kicked the Latin music quotient up a notch at the other festival locations. One of the jewels from that treasure chest is Danay Suarez. A key figure in Cuba's underground rap movement, Havana-born Suárez blends traditional and contemporary rhythms with socially conscious and poetic lyrics. She cooks up a soulful gumbo that blends hip-hop, jazz, reggae, soul, R&B, dubstep and traditional Cuban music with warmth and ease. Her sultry, versatile and powerful voice draws comparisons to Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill, and the New York Times called her "a voice of resilience and passionate self-invention."
 Californian iconoclast Brett Dennen bursts out elegantly funky strands of timeless pop featuring captivating melodies that unfold in a rush of clever rhymes, often laid over subtle African pop rhythms. His sunny take on big subjects like love and death form an ideology of hope for the hopeless and strength for the broken. Dennen's performance at Shakori Hills will kick off his tour with his new album, Grammy-winning Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, Jason Isbell) produced,
Por Favor
(Elektra Records)
.
 GrassRoots Festival vets for over 25 years, Donna the Buffalo and their friends started the Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival in 1990 to raise funds for, and awareness of, the fight against AIDS. Donna the Buffalo's pallete ranges from Cajun to country, reggae to zydeco boogie, and roots-rock with an old-time heart. Their singular sound features upbeat grooves, inspirational lyrics, memorable hooks, superb musicianship, and an overwhelming sense of celebration - socially conscious yet eternally danceable. The band features multi-instrumentalist Tara Nevins, guitarist Jeb Puryear, keyboardist Dave McCracken, bassist Kyle Spark, and drummer Mark Raudabaugh.
M
alian singer Fatoumata Diawara was born of Malian parents in the Ivory Coast in 1982. As a child she became a member of her father's dance troupe and was a popular performer of the wildly flailing didadi dance from Wassoulou, her ancestral home in western Mali. A Malian woman with an acoustic guitar is an all-too-rare sight, but her sweet, soulful vocals and African rhythms have led to collaborations with artists ranging from Herbie Hancock to Dee Dee Bridgewater. She's even featured prominently in the debut album by the new supergroup Rocket Juice and the Moon featuring Flea, Damon Albarn, and Tony Allen. She currently makes her home in France and enjoys a second career as an actress.
Locos Por Juana is a Grammy and Latin Grammy nominated urban orchestra from Miami whose wide-ranging musical approach draws from tropical styles such as cumbia and champeta; Afro-Colombian rhythms such as mapale and chande; urban styles such as hip-hop, rock and Latin alternative; and Caribbean island styles including reggae and Jamaican dub. The band consists of vocalist Itagui Correa, guitarist Mark Kondrat and drummer Javier Delgado, joined by trombonist Lasim Richards and percussionist Carlos Palmet.
Locos Por Juana's sound is a distinct one, a hybrid drawing from the Columbian background of Correa and Delgado and the sounds of the streets of Miami. Their biting social commentary integrates a message of unity and their philosophy of "One Sound."
Other upcoming stars also making the list include: upstate New York's 10-piece Afrobeat, dub, spacey jazz and psychedelic funk ensemble,
Big Mean Sound Machine
; Nashville's new "modern Americana version of Janis Joplin" (as quoted by John Oates), Sarah Potenza; New York's 9-piece "hard soul" blues collective, Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds; and Asheville NC's own progressive indie folk/rock band, River Whyless.
*****
ABOUT GRASSROOTS
GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance is a mission-based (501-c3) organization that hosts four music/dance festivals and two sustainability fairs a year in three different states across the east coast. GrassRoots brings multi-cultural communities together through the magic of music, art, dance, education, wellness and sustainability.
The original Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival began in 1990 as a benefit concert to support a local AIDS organization in Ithaca, NY. The Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival has become an internationally-recognized event with a focus on traditional and contemporary roots music and dance from all over the world.
Thirteen years later, the Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival was launched on a 75-acre farm in the rural town of Pittsboro, North Carolina near the triangle cities of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. There is a festival on this site, owned by the partnering organization the Shakori Hills Community Arts Center, in both spring and fall. This spring will be the 14th annual Spring Shakori Hills GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance.
In 2012, the festival moved down south again, for the winter, having found an amazing site, the Historic Virginia Key Beach Park, just off the coast of Miami, FL. This year celebrated the 5th anniversary of the Virginia Key GrassRoots Festival of Music & Dance.
GrassRoots works to nurture local artists and talent while reaching around the globe to bring world music and culture to new audiences, creating environments that inspire creativity and foster community building. The impact of GrassRoots expands far beyond that which occurs during these four-day festivals. For over 25 years, GrassRoots has served to both engage and give back to the local and regional communities in which we exist by providing financial and organizational support to impact positive change.
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Hi-res photos and band interviews available upon request.
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